Editing Earthforce

:''Earthforce is a group of [[Earth]]-stationed [[Autobot]]s in the [[Generation 1]] [[continuity family]].''

[[Image:Earthforce.jpg|right|250px|thumb|Fighting crime in a never time!]]

'''Earthforce''' is the name of a cell of [[Autobot]]s commanded by [[Grimlock (G1)|Grimlock]] and stationed on [[Earth]] to counter the rising threats of [[Megatron (G1)|Megatron]], [[Starscream (G1)|Starscream]] and [[Soundwave (G1)|Soundwave]], and [[Shockwave (G1)|Shockwave]] and their respective armies.  Grimlock formed his group as a reaction to [[Optimus Prime (G1)|Optimus Prime]]'s command regimen, which he interprets as weak and counterproductive to ending the [[Decepticon]] menace.  

Earthforce's base of operations is in northern [[Canada]].  They get into lots of not-so-serious hijinks.


{{note|More importantly, it's the source of a huge continuity trainwreck in the latter issues of the Marvel Comics UK series.}}


==Fiction==
===Marvel Comics UK continuity===
[[Image:Prowllittlemen.jpg|left|thumb|200px|Ratchet, Sunstreaker<br>
Way before Groundbreaker<br>
There was Huffer and Mirage<br>
And Bumblebee in Spike's garage<br>
I still kick it old school<br>
Don't tell me that I'm so uncool<br>
Or that I'm too absorbed<br>
With 19, 19, 1984.]]
After [[Galvatron (G1)#Other versions of Galvatron|Galvatron]] ''(uh, one of them)'' revived [[Prowl (G1)|Prowl]], [[Ironhide (G1)|Ironhide]], [[Wheeljack (G1)|Wheeljack]], [[Sunstreaker]], and [[Silverbolt (G1)|Silverbolt]] on the [[Ark]], intent on mind-controlling them, they rebelled and sealed Galvatron away in the Ark's medbay.  {{storylink|Perchance to Dream}}  As [[Unicron]] neared [[Cybertron (planet)|Cybertron]], [[Optimus Prime (G1)|Optimus Prime]] dispatched Wheeljack and Prowl to the [[Arizona]] desert to investigate Decepticon activity.  Musing about the simplicity of the old days, they stumbled across [[Megatron (G1)|Megatron]], the [[Constructicon (G1)|Constructicon]]s, and the [[Stunticon]]s, deep into a plan to detonate Earth's atmosphere and convert it into [[Energon]]. {{storylink|Starting Over!}}

Meanwhile, the [[Dinobots]] were ambushed by [[Shockwave (G1)|Shockwave]], [[Starscream (G1)|Starscream]], [[Ravage]], and the [[Battlecharger]]s, demanding to know how Grimlock was able to revive them without using the [[Creation Matrix]].  In the middle of the Dinobots' retaliation, Optimus Prime interrupted them angrily, asking them to be mindful of the humans' civilization and to adhere to the [[Autobot Code]].  {{storylink|Two Steps Back!}}  

Back on the Ark, Grimlock once again announced his dissatisfaction with Prime's leadership and threatened to take his Dinobots and leave the Autobots for good.  Optimus Prime dismissed Grimlock's behavior as a tantrum, prompting a battle between the two that ended in stalemate.  Conceding to Grimlock partially, Optimus Prime allowed Grimlock to be the Autobot Commander on Earth, so long as he play less rough than usual.  A group of Autobots entered the room and announced that Prowl and Wheeljack had foiled Megatron's plan to detonate a deadly heat-trapping gas in Earth's atmosphere, but were in danger and needed backup.  With Prime's blessing, these Autobots joined the Dinobots to form the Earthforce. {{storylink|Break-Away!}}

Ironhide and Bumblebee found and destroyed a partially-constructed duplicate Devastator, under construction because the Constructicons had lost the ability to combine.  {{storylink|Desert Island Risks!}}  Jazz and Sunstreaker, meanwhile, found that Prowl had neutralized the gas days ago and was enjoying the relaxed pace of south Louisiana.  {{storylink|Life in the Slow Lane}}

Prowl later followed Megatron back in time to the era of the [[Underbase Saga]], to stop him from recruiting the Seacons to his cause. {{storylink|Flashback!}}  After few minor altercations {{storylink|Snow Fun!}} {{storylink|The Living Nightlights}} and incidents {{storylink|Mystery!}}, several of the team managed to disrupt the Decepticon's [[Enclave]], preventing their splintered enemies from uniting.  {{storylink|The Bad Guy's Ball!}}  They then joined up with the [[Survivors]] to help them back up Carnivac's solo attack on the [[Mayhem Attack Squad]]; they took the surviving Mayhems prisoner, and welcomed Carnivac into their ranks. {{storylink|Where Wolf?}}

As the Decepticon Civil War continued {{storylink|Secrets}} {{storylink|Bugged!}}, the Autobots fortified their headquarters  {{storylink|The House that Wheeljack Built!}}, but found themselves repeatedly dragged into their foes' conflicts {{storylink|Internal Affairs!}}  {{storylink|Divide and Conquer!}}  

Optimus Prime came to Autobot Earthbase for an ill-timed inspection visit, just as Slag was driven to run wild by a cerebral circuit flaw, causing many hijinks as the other Dinobots struggled to keep his condition secret from the Autobot leader.   {{storylink|The 4,000,000 Year Itch!}}  Prime also inspected the base's "bodyshop", which was used to reanimate the long-inert Tracks (over Grimlock's violent protests).  {{storylink|Makin' Tracks}}

After Prime's visit, Earthforce's Decepticon prisoners managed to escape.  {{storylink|Shut Up!}}    The Decepticon Civil War came home more immediately to Earthforce when Snarl fell ill with Corodia Gravis, requiring the Autobots to protect Starscream from his Decepticon foes, as he was the only compatible Transformer who could provide Snarl with a needed circuit-boost. {{storylink|Assassins}} {{storylink|External Forces!}}  {{storylink|The Lesser Evil!}} Eventually, Snarl's body gave out regardless, requiring drastic measures to save his life.   {{storylink|Destiny of the Dinobots!}}

When Bombshell implanted a cerebro shell to send Superion on a rampage, the Autobots recruited a human reporter to get the shell out.  {{storylink|Inside Story!}}  They gladly gave him a tour of their base and full interviews in gratitude, but another cerebro shell ensured that the story he wrote painted the Autobots in a negative light.  {{storylink|End of the Road! (UK issue)}}

At some point, six of the team re-joined Prime's main force aboard the Ark, and traveled to Cybertron to search for any remnants of the [[Underbase]]; there they came into conflict with the mad Decepticon known as [[Megadeath]].  {{storylink|The Magnificent Six!}}

==Continuity problems==
Part of an attempt to help sell Europe's [[Classics (Euro)|Classics]] line of reissues, the Earthforce stories, black and white backup material for the issue's "main" story, intentionally harken back to the simpler era of ''Transformers''' early years.  The Earthforce stories share much in common with the main Marvel Comics UK continuity from which it branched.  [[Optimus Prime (G1)|Optimus Prime]] is in his Powermaster form.  Grimlock has recently revived his [[Dinobot]]s and several Autobots with [[Nucleon]].  Several stories references the imminent coming of Unicron.  Many threads tie directly in from previous stories, such as the remaining Wreckers from [[Time Wars]] and their various dramas with the [[Mayhem Attack Squad]].

However, many of these tie-ins were referred to in advance of them actually occurring in the continuity proper.  It appears to the reader that writer [[Simon Furman]] knew vaguely what was going to happen in the future of the comic, so although he wrote these stories with this future in mind, when these links came to be, there was no possible place or loophole for these events to occur.  For example:
* [[Galvatron II]] could not have possibly awoken several Autobots on the [[Ark]] prior to the Unicron War. ''(Though there is room for debate as to exactly which [[Galvatron (G1)|Galvatron]] this is.)''
* Megatron, Starscream and Soundwave, and Shockwave could not possibly have been feuding on Earth.
* The second Decepticon Civil War did not include a third faction led by Megatron. {{storylink|...All This and Civil War 2}}
* There's no room in the Marvel US/UK timeline between Grimlock reviving his Dinobots on [[Hydrus Four]] and the arrival of [[Unicron]] on [[Cybertron (planet)|Cybertron]] for Grimlock to return to Optimus Prime, get in a fight with him, and end up on Earth for an extended period of time fighting Megatron and Shockwave and Soundwave and Starscream while all of them are confirmed as being elsewhere.

Yikes.

[[Image:Grimlockwasthatwise.jpg|left|thumb|300px|We're in two places at once!]]

Interestingly, Grimlock's Earthforce cast shows up in "[[On the Edge of Extinction!]]" as Grimlock arrives from Earth on the Ark.  Though the presence of most of them could be explained by the need to push their [[Action Master]] toys (and it seems to be the only reason [[Blaster]] is there, as he was not an Earthforce character), the appearances of Skids, Ironhide, Silverbolt, and especially Sunstreaker are conspicuous, considering the Earthforce stories.   (Sunstreaker's only prominent use in the Marvel Comics was in Earthforce.  He was offline for most of it otherwise.)  Wheeljack mentions they are freshly returned from near-death by Nucleon, quickly eliminating any possibility for Earthforce to have recently occurred.

Furman has since stated that a key part of the problem was that due to publishing deadlines, the altered format of the UK comic and the shorter US stories, he found that attempts to write UK strips tying into the concurrent US stories proved near impossible as the UK comic kept interrupting the the US strips with reprints of old UK stories in order to widen the gap in publishing. This in turn meant that the UK stories often pre-empted upcoming surprises in the US strips. Consequently he abandoned efforts to tie the two strips together.

But that's not the end of the continuity headache, oh no. Before Earthforce started and when US-UK continuity was still around, there was a storyline of the [[Mayhem Attack Squad]] hunting down Decepticon defectors [[Carnivac]] and [[Catilla]]. {{storylink|Hunting Party!}} [[Bludgeon (G1)|Bludgeon]] killed Catilla and an enraged Carnivac swore vengeance. But he got the vengeance... during the Earthforce stories, with the Earthforce cast playing a role in the final story {{storylink|Where Wolf?}} and Carnivac joining them afterwards. So... does this mean Carnivac ''didn't'' get his revenge in the non-Earthforce timeline? Or did he get it differently? Or was it pretty much the same (off-panel), but with the US cast instead of the Earthforce cast? Arrrrrrg.

{{-}}

==Trivia==
* According the the ''[[Prey]]'' trade paperback collection, Earthforce is stationed in northern Canada because [[Simon Furman]] really likes [[Polar Claw|polar bears]].  This is why there's one drawn in nearly every establishing shot.


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